Co-founder of Europe 1, whose advertising agency he founded in 1956, Franco-Israeli businessman Jean Frydman, also a former Resident, died in Israel overnight from Saturday to Sunday.

Arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 and sentenced to death, he escaped the firing squad and began a career in advertising after the war.

Franco-Israeli businessman Jean Frydman, former resistance fighter, co-founder of Europe 1 and protagonist of a resounding affair opposing him to L'Oréal in the 1980s and 1990s, died in Israel at the age of 95 years old, we learned on Sunday from corroborating sources.

Jean Frydman, who was also one of the organizers of the Tel Aviv Peace Demonstration in which Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995, died Saturday night to Sunday at his home de Savyon, announced Michael Bar Zohar, writer and former Labor MP.

Engaged very young in the Resistance

"He was a very dear friend ... He had an incredible place in the history of France and in that of Israel ... He had a deep connection with Israel and was a great Israeli patriot because he had the double nationality, ”added Michael Bar Zohar, who had known Jean Frydman for years.

A spokeswoman for the family in France confirmed the death and pointed out that Jean Frydman had lived in Israel for 40 years.

"Engaged in the Resistance in 1940 at the age of 15 (...) a great man of communication and media, he notably founded (the advertising agency) Mediavision and co-founded Europe 1", explained this spokesperson. in a press release.

Jean Frydman was also one of the protagonists of a case that had caused a stir at the turn of the 1990s, and which opposed him to the cosmetics giant L'Oréal.

The affair had started with the boycott by the Arab countries in 1988 of the products of L'Oréal, which was about to buy Helena Rubinstein.

Jean Frydman was then ousted from his post as director of Paravision, a subsidiary of L'Oréal specializing in the audiovisual industry, and he felt that, because he was Jewish, this dismissal was an inadmissible pledge given to Arab countries. .

This case had given rise to multiple legal twists before Jean Frydman and the historic leader of L'Oréal François Dalle (who died in 2005) withdrew their reciprocal complaints.

According to documentary director Jean-François Perigot, who signed a series of interviews with him in 2002, Jean Frydman joined the Resistance at a very young age during the German occupation and had managed to survive death several times.

"In 1940, he was only fifteen when he decided to join Free France via Spain", explains the director on his blog.

An arrest by the Gestapo in 1944

Then he becomes active in the south of France for the resistance movement Franc-Tireur.

"When he learned that a big roundup was preparing in Paris during the summer of 1942, he returned to the capital where he succeeded in warning his parents" and "his family escaped the Vel 'd'Hiv roundup", says Jean- Francois Perigot.

He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 and sentenced to death.

"He waits every morning for someone to come and get him to be executed" but "he escapes the firing squad thanks to Aloïs Brunner who came to look for Jews in Fresnes", according to the director.

He was then evacuated to Buchenwald in the last convoy, carrying number 79, bound for the death camps.

But he manages to escape.

In the post-war period, Jean Frydman embarked on the adventure of communication, advertising and private broadcasting.

In particular, he took part in the first steps of radio Europe 1, for which he founded the advertising agency in 1956, then became managing director of Télé-Monte-Carlo in 1967 and in 1973 took over the presidency of the advertising agency Médiavision, active in the cinema.